


Critical Pulp

by machiavellian_mask



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: An homage and a joke, Gen, Just what it says on the tin, M/M, Modern AU, Pulp Fiction AU, Very mild fantasy racism, crack!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 15:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19478371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellian_mask/pseuds/machiavellian_mask
Summary: A rogue and a gunslinger walk into a diner...  already occupied by a Goliath and his friend the Meat Man, who have had a very bad twenty-four hours.***Basically this is a crack!fic of the diner sequences from Pulp Fiction but set in Exandria with our season one beloved boys.  Don't expect anything more from it than that.





	Critical Pulp

**Author's Note:**

> So I asked myself, do you really want your VERY first fic on AO3 to be a crack fic in which you write none of the dialogue? And replied to myself (hard to be wrong if you answer yourself), I see your point but this was both easy and fun to write and you still have your serious fic that inspired this weirdness coming soon, so just go with it. 
> 
> None of the characters are my own - they belong to their brilliant creators/actors in Critical Role. The dialogue has been tweaked but is pretty much straight from the screenplay to Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino, though the character's choices of movement and delivery of said dialogue is all me. I mean no offense or plagiarism, this is all goofy fun which was inspired by a single line in Michael Malarkey's "My History Will Be the Death of Me", a wonderful song on which I've based a long upcoming Perc'ildan fic. 
> 
> "I've got your number, Honey Bunny and I'm ready to roll."

It's a diner in middle Tal'Dorei, perhaps not like every diner in middle Tal'Dorei, but certainly like the cliche inherent in the concept. It's the sort of place that you might imagine you'd see in a movie or television show set in the '70s or early '80s - orangey-red Naugahyde booths, waitresses in polyester dresses rather than the typical white shirt and black slacks, and a far too large and impressive menu considering said waitress (her nametag said her name was Sherry) had admitted to them up front that the only things she recommended were the waffles, the chicken fried steak and whatever pie was on for the day. It happens to be blueberry. 

They'd stopped mostly because there was an attached gas station and Vax was feeling road-weary and in the mood to stretch his legs, but he'd been tempted by the blueberry pie and the promise that Sherry had just put on a fresh pot of coffee. Percy had a cup, drank it quickly and began fiddling with his napkin, drawing some sort of design or plan on it. Vax took out a fresh pack of cigarettes, slid off the cellophane, tapped twice and lit one up. There was an ashtray on the table. Apparently, this was also the sort of place nobody minded a bit of second-hand smoke.

They haven't been speaking for a while, not since Sherry came back around for the empty pie plate. Vax has been looking at the other customers and serving staff, his long clever fingers drumming quietly on the table with an alarming speed and dexterity. Percy has just been scribbling on the napkin.

Finally, Vax says, "No, forget it, it's too risky. I'm through doing that shit."

Percival smiles, and it's a soft smile, a fond smile, perhaps just a touch condescending. He doesn't look up. "You always say that. The same thing every time: 'never again, I'm through, too dangerous.'"

The two men have similar dialects (English, certainly), though Percy's is a little more clear and concise, received pronunciation bordering on aristocratic, whereas Vax'ildan's accent curls in between posh and rough, sometimes a little bit one, sometimes a little bit the other. While it would be difficult for even someone British to determine where the hell Percival is from, Vax is all London... he's just all the over the place in London. And both of them clearly do it on purpose.

At the moment, Vax sounds about as lower-class London as he ever has, and the look in his eye is both exasperated and oddly calculating. "I KNOW that's what I always say," he agrees, taking another drag. "I'm always right, too, but-"

"But," Percy slides in easily, "you forget about it in a day or two." Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowksi de Rolo III (you can call him Percy if he's in the mood but perhaps you'd best ask and make certain if your initials aren't V.V) is six foot one, broad-shouldered but with a swimmer's build, exceptionally pale skinned and quite handsome in an angular, hungry sort of way. Although he can't have been older than his early twenties (and might perhaps not even be twenty) his hair is a thick shock of pure white, cut to just brush his jacket's collar. His eyes are an icy blue, and when he bothers to actually look at someone, can be either very piercing or very enticing, even behind the strange double-circular spectacles he wears, that, mixed with an ensemble both entirely too expensive and formal AND too warm for July in Bumfuck, wherever (town's poorer than Stilben) gives the odd impression that he might be attending a steampunk convention. Odd attire not withstanding, he has received a fair few intrigued, curious and flirtatious looks since he entered the diner, but if he has noticed even one of them, he has shown absolutely no sign.

His companion, on the other hand, is receiving an equal amount of looks, and an equal amount of uncertain ones, and is clearly enjoying both sorts equally. He'd milked it when they walked in, tossing his leather jacket over his shoulder and sauntering in a way that made his black jeans seem tighter even than usual. Even now, as he is starting to look a bit non-plussed that Percy isn't letting him carry the conversation, he still appreciates the casual attention. So long as it stays casual. Vax'ildan (you'd have to card him to find out his last name is Vessar, because he never offers it and always pays in cash, when he pays at all), is about three inches shorter than Percy and slightly lighter in frame, though the tight gray t-shirt he wears makes it exceedingly obvious that he is neither scrawny or in poor shape. His features are sharp, somewhat elfin, and manage to be pretty without being actually feminine, despite the fact that his long silky black hair falls nearly to his waist, the top half pulled back from his face in a low ponytail that exposes the tips of his pointed ears. His eyes are hazel, but in the fluorescent lights look exceptionally green. 

He says, clearly mildly irritated, "Yeah, well, the days of me forgetting are over, and the days of me remembering have begun." Even he seems to realize that this isn't very helpful, because he growls a little and pokes a stirring straw into his cold coffee.

Percy sighs and finally looks up, regarding Vax over his glasses. "When you go on like this, you know what you sound like?"

"I sound like a sensible fucking man is what I sound like." Vax'ildan stubs out his cigarette.

"You sound like a duck," says Percival calmly and a touch cruelly. "Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack."

Oddly, instead of being irritated by the duck-Vax impression, Vax just doubles down. "Well, take heart, 'cause you're never going to have to hear it again. Because since I'm never going to do it again, YOU are never going to have to hear me quack about how I'm never going to do it again."

"After tonight."

Vax looks over at Percy, still coolly smiling, and suddenly begins to laugh. After a moment, Percy joins in and they laugh together in a quiet stillness until they are interrupted by Sherry's return with a hot pot of coffee in her left hand. Vax does not notice her, murmuring, "Correct, Freddie. I've got all of tonight to quack."

Sherry may realize she's interrupting, or she may not. In truth, she seems the kind of bored you get when you work in a place like this fifty some hours a week. She doesn't even seem to care or notice that these two are unlike her usual clientele. She says, "Can I get anybody any more coffee?" as if she's asked that same question at least two hundred times already today (it's about 9:00 in the morning). 

"Oh, yes, thank you," Percival says, pushing his cup over to be filled.

Vax says, "I'm doing fine." 

Sherry wanders away as Vax lights up another cigarette and Percival adds cream and sugar to his coffee.

Before they can even be certain she's out of earshot, Vax is talking again. "I mean the way it is now, you're taking the same fucking risk as when you rob a bank. You take more of a risk. Banks are easier! Federal banks aren't supposed to stop you anyway during a robbery. They're insured, why should they care? You don't even need a gun in a federal bank. I heard about this guy, walked into a federal bank with a piece of copper wire, handed the wire to the teller, some other guy with another wire on the other end said: 'We got this guy's little girl, and if you don't give him all your money, we're gonna kill her.'"

Against his best instincts, Percy finds himself intrigued. He leans forward, his chin pillowed on a gloved hand. "Did it work?"

"Fucking A' it worked!" Vax'ildan exclaims, only quieting himself slightly when he sees that others have glanced their direction. "That's what I'm talking about. Knucklehead walks in a bank with a piece of wire, not a dagger, not a gun, but a fucking WIRE, cleans the place out and they don't lift a finger."

Percy considers this for a moment, jots something else down on the napkin, takes a sip of his coffee and then, out of the blue asks, "Did they hurt the little girl?"

Vax splutters. He wasn't quite expecting that. Calm as he can, he tries to dig the conversation back to where he wants it, using his lowest, sultriest tones to try to distract Percy. "I don't know. There probably never was a little girl - the point of the story isn't the little girl. The point of the story is that they robbed a bank with a Message spell."

Percy will not be distracted. "You want to rob banks?"

"I'm not saying I want to rob banks, I'm just illustrating that if we did, it would be easier than what we've been doing."

"So you don't want to become a bank robber?"

At this point, it is fairly obvious that Percy is just messing with Vax, but yet again, Vax shows no sign of irritation, merely nervous tension that he expels through a shaky sigh and another long inhalation of smoke. "Nah, all those guys are going down the same road - either dead or serving twenty."

"And no more liquor stores?" Percival is neutral, but he is once again looking his companion in the eye.

Vax sighs. "What have we been talking about?" he grumbles, pushing a hand into his hair and pulling a few loose strands down to shadow his cheekbones. "Yeah, no more liquor stores. Besides, it isn't the giggle it used to be. Too many foreigners own liquor stores. Marquesians, Dwendalians, they can't fucking speak Common. You tell them: 'Empty out the register,' and they don't know what it fucking means. They make it too personal. We keep on, one of those Wildemount motherfuckers is going to make us kill him."

Percy's voice is like a guillotine when he says, "I'm not going to kill anybody," but there's smoke at the table that isn't coming from Vax's cigarette and something in the flicker of both their eyes belies his statement. 

Vax shivers and his hand moves forward as if to cover Percy's where it still holds its pen, but he thinks better of it and resumes his light-hearted, casual racism. "I don't want to kill anybody, either, but they'll probably put us in a situation where it's us of them. And if it's not the Marquesians, it these old lizards who've owned the store for fifteen fucking centuries. You've got Grandpa Copperscale sitting behind the counter with a fucking Wand of Wonder. Try walking into one of those stores with nothing but a piece of wire, see how far it gets you. Fuck it, forget it, we're out of it."

It isn't exactly as if Percy disagrees, his voice is back to casual when he says, "Well, what else is there? Day jobs?"

"Not in this life," Vax'ildan snorts. 

"Well, what then?"

Rather than reply, Vax looks over for their waitress and calls absently, "Onwe! Coffee!" After he sees he has caught some attention, he looks back to the white-haired man. "This place," he almost whispers.

Sherry doesn't take long to come over and refill his coffee, but she (a full-blooded elf) gives him a bit of a sneer as she does so, informing him in a very clear, almost cutting tone, "Onwe means child." 

As if he didn't know that particular word. He ignores her and she does not linger.

As soon as she's gone, Percival is leaning forward, both hands on the edges of the table. "Here?" he hisses. "It's a coffee shop!"

"what's wrong with that?" Vax demands. It's taken him a long, roundabout route to work up to it, but he's finally got into the swing of asking for what he wants, and this, THIS, is what Vax is good at. This is where his lowered tones, like velvet rubbed raw the wrong way, are going to serve him well, he is certain. "People never rob restaurants, why not? Bars, liquor stores, gas stations - you get your head caved in sticking up one of them. Restaurants, on the other hand, you catch with their pants down. They're not expecting to get robbed, or not as expecting."

Percy is nodding, his eyes glimmering with the roots of a plan. "I bet," he says slowly, quietly, "in places like this you could cut down on the hero factor."

The flash of Vax's smile is a bit like sun coming out from behind dark clouds, and it isn't something that Percy can pretend to be unaffected by. "Correct!" he says again. "Just like banks, these places are insured. The managers don't give a fuck, they're just trying to get you out the door before you start killing diners. Waitresses, forget it, they aren't taking a bullet for the register. Busboys, some half-orc getting paid a copper an hour is really going to give a fuck you're stealin' from the owner? Customers are sitting there with food in their mouths, they don't know what's going on. One minute they're having an Emon omelet, next minute somebody's sticking a gun in their face."

It is quite clear that Percy is digesting the idea, not entirely listening to Vax, but still giving him enough consideration that Vax feels comfortable lowering his voice even slightly more and continuing on, "You see, I got the idea at the last liquor store we stuck up. Remember all those customers coming in?"

"Yes," Percy says, still sounding distracted. 

"You got the idea to take everybody's wallet," Vax persists. 

"Uh-huh."

"That was a good idea." His voice curls and purrs, it's like honey when he really wants it to be, and Percy isn't for one minute fooled that the compliment (and the implication that this idea of Vax's is actually Percy's idea) isn't an attempt at subtle manipulation. 

"Thank you," he says calmly. He hasn't decided yet if he will be manipulated or not, but he's enjoying Vax's efforts very much. He also wants to know where this is going.

"We made more from the wallets than we did from the register."

"Yes, we did."

Vax takes in a deep breath. He thinks he's got this, but it looks like it may take one final push. Casually, he offers, "A lot of people go to restaurants."

Percy's smile is tight and doesn't show his teeth, but his eyes are shining. "A lot of purses," he says. 

"Pretty smart, eh?" Vax asks, leaning forward himself now, unable to read Percy's eyes and uncertain what that means. 

But Percy is now leaning back, taking in the room much as Vax had earlier, cataloguing entrances and exits, counting customers and assessing them, eyeing busboys and waiters and the one bored and overweight manager type behind the cash register. Slowly, slowly, his smile widens into something real. "Pretty smart," he agrees, the compliment like a caress. He enjoys the way Vax immediately reacts to it. It makes him a little reckless. "I'm ready," he says, "Let's go, right here, right now."

Vax's grin threatens to split his face, but he stays in control, his once manic persona now easing into that of the calm, almost bored, professional. This is, after all, what Vax does. "Remember, same as before, you're crowd control, I handle the employees," he murmurs.

"Got it." Percy doesn't generally take orders from Vax but this scenario makes sense. Percy has the big gun, after all.

It makes a little more sense why he has been all bundled up in that long coat despite the faulty air conditioning when he removes Bad News (a beautiful, hand-tooled shotgun) and sets it on the table between them. Vax has taken two knives from where they were hidden beneath the waistband of his jeans and set them opposite, though he's still holding them in such a way that makes it clear not only can he throw them, but he's got more. 

They are still smiling at one another as if there is no one else in the diner, no one else in the podunk town, no one else in Tal'Dorei or even Exandria. Suddenly Percival surges across the table and kisses Vax hard on the mouth. "I love you, Pumpkin," he says.

Surprised and a little winded, Vax replies immediately, "I love you, Honey Bunny."

Without another word or even another look at one another, they're out of the booth. Although they are both exceptionally fast, Vax clears the edge of the fake leather first, one dagger in a reverse grip, the other balanced by the tip of the blade to throw. There is a sort of casual roughness about his demeanor and his voice that ndicates that while he's not really in the mood for bloodshed today he's done his fair share of unsavory things when he wasn't in the mood before. "Everybody be cool!" he calls out into the startled hush of layers of people, one after another, realizing what is actually happening to them. "This is a robbery!"

Percival, on the other hand, once he's escaped the confines of the booth, is harsh, loud and decisive. He steps on top of a nearby table, holding Bad News propped against his shoulder and swivels so that it sweeps the room. For the first time this morning he doesn't sound like he's attending a gala - he sounds like he is preparing for a funeral. "Any of you fucking pricks move and I will execute every motherfucking one of you! Do you understand?"

**Author's Note:**

> Couple quick things - I know it's a bit weird to set the thing in Exandria but also use time references such as '70s or July, but I thought it would be a bit easier to visualize. Basically it's a merger of our world and Matt Mercer's creation.
> 
> Also I am very very aware that the Message spell does not work that way - I just figured Vax might not be since he's only experienced the earrings and their magic is more like a Sending stone. Also I don't think Tarantino meant for Pumpkin to know what he's talking about here, so I stand behind Vax not knowing. Also I apologize for the racist comments which may be a bit OOC but this IS the man who asked for help "getting the lizard to Dwarftown" early in the campaign. <3
> 
> There is a chapter two.


End file.
